Occupy Wall Street

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

But how is running up a huge deficit remotely a conservative idea? Shouldn't he be getting destroyed for this?

How many people have any idea whether a 15% flat tax would actually work? Almost none. How many people find the idea of flatness and equality and less taxes appealing? Lots. How many people bother to find out whether the idea that sounds intuitively good to them actually makes sense? Almost none.

[lcjjdnh]

Thought this best fit in this thread. A clear market failure and an example of why we need legal reform and a change of social norms.

He’s One of the Nation’s Highest-Paid CEOs—and You’ve Never Heard of Him - The Daily Beast

[bhlloy]

Wow. I've worked closely with McKesson in my previous job and they were shit. I can't believe they are that big and "successful" (at least for that CEO). Thanks for ruining my evening.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Wow. I've worked closely with McKesson in my previous job and they were shit. I can't believe they are that big and "successful" (at least for that CEO). Thanks for ruining my evening.

A former manager of mine was a high level manager at McKesson before coming to our little company. He was the worst boss I've ever had on every level. In possibly the boldest (or most dickish...) move my rather meek self has ever made I once confronted him about a new policy and told him that I thought his management style was modeled after the boss in Dilbert.

One of our most important vendors was bought out by McKesson last year, but they've basically been left alone to operate as they always did, at least the part of the company we work with, so I dunno much more about that.

[molson]

Originally Posted by lcjjdnh

Thought this best fit in this thread. A clear market failure and an example of why we need legal reform and a change of social norms.

He’s One of the Nation’s Highest-Paid CEOs—and You’ve Never Heard of Him - The Daily Beast

But even by the article's own language, that's an "excessive" CEO income, many times more than the average. And once we get into the hundred million category, we're not talking 1%, we're talking about a much smaller group - a group in which I'm sure no more than a handful aren't pretty successful at something, and it's a group small enough that modest tax increases aren't going to improve everyone's standard of living somehow. Picking out some examples aren't really speaking to "social norms" about what people who make money are actually doing, actually working on, actually accomplishing. There's idiots in the group but you'll never convince me that's the norm. I've read too much stuff on their backgrounds, where they've come from, how they've gotten there, how they've succeeded. They can pay more in taxes, that's cool, but it's not the downfall of America that we still have some that are competing in a global economy. I admire success, and brilliance, not money, and there's not a perfect correlation between those things, not even close, but it's a good place to start. The loser in the tent the last month wouldn't be having a wildly successful career if only the system would allow it.

Of course, to the extent legal reform might be appropriate here, this guy wouldn't be a OWS target because he's not a cop or a local government.

[SportsDino]

No tax will get that guy in line... he is part of the breed of parasite CEOs which I'd argue are more common than people think.

For all his compensation I do not think MCK has done any better for it, its performance can be explained away just by it matching the market (S&P doubled since the low point, MCK doubled since the low). This in an industry with high inflation caused by companies like MCK and a big pile of annual revenues inherited before this guy even touched the company. It don't take rocket science to keep doing what the company has been doing for years to take money once it is established like that, it does take a special kind of idiot to show the incompetence this guy has though. It just gets papered over like so many other mistakes by our modern moronic leaders (until a crisis happens, at which point that stock tanks and they run out the door with millions in failure bonuses).

Just because they have billions to play with doesn't mean people shouldn't be pissed when a billion goes out the door for nothing. But shareholders are idiots, so who cares?

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

i don't understand how corps which are in a constant state of refinement, streamlining costs at every turn, can turn around and pay someone exorbitantly. regardless of what they do.

[lcjjdnh]

Originally Posted by NorvTurnerOverdrive

i don't understand how corps which are in a constant state of refinement, streamlining costs at every turn, can turn around and pay someone exorbitantly. regardless of what they do.

Contra SportsDino, shareholders aren't idiots, they just have no control. Corporate law has long been aware of the collective action and principal-agent problems corporations pose. Directors, often executives themselves, have a stake in keeping CEO salaries inflated. No one has any incentive to run real proxy fights--you foot the entire bill, but receive only part of the benefit if you succeed. It's easier to just sell your stock if you're fed up with management.

[RainMaker]

If you don't like how a company is run, don't buy shares of it.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by NorvTurnerOverdrive

i don't understand how corps which are in a constant state of refinement, streamlining costs at every turn, can turn around and pay someone exorbitantly. regardless of what they do.

Have you worked in the corporate world at all? Constant state of refinement? Streamlining costs at every turn? Some costs, yes. But when was the last time you saw a major company actually put a leash on, say, the spending of salespeople? It turns out that they don't need to stay at the nicest hotels or have conferences where the ice sculpture costs more than people's salaries. Those poor executives- they are so undercompensated for a job that mostly involves PR and basically being "the face" that makes the best decision your underlings bring to you.

Yes, some companies cut back more than others and there are good and bad people in every job. But, let's not be naive about how business still runs. Most companies continue to thrive because of size, which allows them some economy of scale, and access to the government and political power.

SI

[lcjjdnh]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

If you don't like how a company is run, don't buy shares of it.

But that's precisely the problem. Corporative governance mechanisms are ineffective because it's easier to simply not buy shares (or sell the ones you own).

And even as a non-shareholder of any specific firm, it's perfectly legitimate to worry about the basic failure of corporate governance to control exorbitant executive pay.

[PilotMan]

Big thread bump because this just bothers me so much.

First off, the top 5% of income earners in this chart is only 287K (from 2010, couldn't find a nice chart with more recent numbers), yet we can't call income earners who make 250K "rich", they are clearly middle class. So our income game is so skewed that even the average of the top 20% (#1 to 20%) of income earners is 110k less than the avg of the top 5%, and that that number is almost the entire gap between the top 20% and the second quintile (21% to 40% group, 90K).

Furthermore, the income gap between the top 5% and the top 20% is more than the income of the bottom 80% of households in the US. That blows my mind.

The average of the middle quintile (41% to 60%, or the US average income) damn near qualifies for reduced school lunches and earned income credit which is in place for lower middle class families.

The average income of the bottom 20% (81% to #last) is well below the poverty line. Keep in mind that this is a chart of household income. Not individual income, therefore the argument that all those people are kids and students. It's simply not true. These are households.

I was having a conversation with a friend who was emphatic that tax codes had to be even across incomes, and that the bottom of society should not be supported at 100%. How hard is it to understand that not even the average of the top 5% of households can't be considered rich, and that the bottom are so poor that they can't afford to live without massive subsidies, and that it's not a problem?

Prior to the crash of 2008 I was much more in the center right politically. But the crash impacted my life so much, and the lives of friends and families that I knew it changed. I realized that the vast majority of families are riding the tail of the dragon, and when we try to leash it at all the handler just crushes us to his own benefit. Just a little protection please? Just a little getting out from under this rock of crushing pain please?

There's a good chance at some point in my career that I'll break into the top 20% income wise. While I may never be considered rich, I will pay my ever increasing taxes because it's the burden that I have to pay to maintain the society that I live in. I don't want anarchy or a new French Revolution in the US. I wasn't born in the slum. I was lucky. We take care of our own.

{edit:I was listening to Rage this morning so maybe that had something to do with my rant }

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[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

wasn't sure where to post this but it's great

Dutch primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal shows a video of two Capuchin monkeys in side-by-side cages. Each monkey is given the same task to complete: handing the experimenter a rock. Their "pay" is a slice of cucumber. But when the experimenter starts paying one of the monkeys in grapes (which the monkeys like better than cucumbers), the monkey who was being paid in cucumbers protests.